Discourses and Selected Writings (Classics)

by Epictetus

‘But if I refuse to participate in Nero’s festival, he will kill me.’ [17] Go ahead and participate, then – but I still refuse. ‘Why?’ Because you think of yourself as no more than a single thread in the robe, whose duty it is to conform to the mass of people – just as a single white thread seemingly has no wish to clash with the remainder of the garment. [18] But I aspire to be the purple stripe, that is, the garment’s brilliant hem.